I remembered to dig thru my old files and found copies of the "how to's" on the old zr7.com site.
If anyone wants the word documents emailed to them just pm me with your email address.
Write up #1:
Contributed by Philip Darnall
I disliked the soft springs in the front forks of my ZR-7. Nobody made a replacement spring for the ZR-7 that I could find. So I went ahead and perform surgery on the forks and made my own parts.
I took a 2" long PVC Schedule 40 end-to-end connector and cut it into half. This gave me two 1" spacers for each fork. I removed the fork caps with a socket wrench. (Make sure that you have backed off the pinch bolts or the caps will never come off!) Once the caps were off, I pulled out the factory metal spacer. It is about 6" long and made of thin steel. I wanted to get a look at the spring and other goodies in the fork, so I needed to fish out more parts.
I made a simple hook out of a handy coat hanger. Reaching down into the fork about 8" I pulled up the spring. The factory setup had a real nice metal washer/spacer that sat between the spring and the main spacer tube. I took the spacer/washer off and let the spring fall back down into the stanchion tube. The spring had a nice lip on the top edge where the metal washer/spacer sat. So I dropped the PVC spacer into the fork.
I took my hook and made sure my custom spacer was fully seated on the spring. Next I dropped the factory washer/spacer on top of the PVC spacer. Then in went the original 6" metal spacer. I tried to put the caps back on.
Their was no way that I could compress the spring enough to screw the cap back on. I pulled the PVC spacer out and cut it down by 1/4" and put everything back together. This time the cap went on with a minimum of cussing!
I repeated the same steps for the other side.
Oh what a difference a small spacer makes. My ZR-7 sits up much higher now with the extra preload. When I sat on the bike (post modification) the fork sagged down about 3/4" at the most. The old setup would drop down about 2"! I could slam on the brakes and the front wouldn't dive near as bad as the original setup.
With the bike riding higher and diving less I could last longer on the ride home. My hands didn't go numb in the first ten minutes.
Total cost for the modification was under one dollar.
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Write up #2 :
PVC Fork Modification Kawasaki ZR-7S
Contributed by Josh Leonard (aka Qheuie)
The pictures here were taken when I was replacing the original inserts I had made (1 3/4") with shorter ones (1")
(just pictures of the left fork leg)
The diameter of PVC coupler to use is 3/4". The coupler is 2" long so you will have to cut it down.
Make sure you debur the plastic after you cut it. You probably don't want plastic flakes floating around in your fork.
Here I took the bars off.. simple enough. Then I loosened the clamp pinch bolts by the caps, make sure you do this or turning the fork caps out will be a pain.
I also took the bolts that hold the cable guides to the fork off so I could move the bars out of the way.
(an old pair of jeans worked great to catch spills and protect the paint)
This is how much the spacers stuck out when I opened the fork (there is a 1 3/4" spacer in already,
sorry for the dark image
This is what the stack of spacer(s) and washer looked like before I put it back in. Notice the order of insertion.
I made sure to put the "factory" (non-cut) side of the PVC down to meet the spring, the washer meets the cut side then.
(the washer is between the PVC and the metal.)
This is the stack sticking out just before I capped it with a 1" spacer (1 3/4" was too stiff for me)
Notice the difference in material hanging out (about 3/4", ha)
This is where the fun began. When I put in a 1 3/4" spacer, I had to have my roommate help me push and turn the cap in.
The 1" spacer was manageable by just myself.
Tip: thread the cap on without the factory spacer in just to find where it "catches" the threads in the fork. That way you can make a good guess as to where to start turning the cap when compressing the stack. (Did that make sense??) Make sure you don't cross thread the cap/fork tube! You can feel when the cap starts to thread, if it turns easy you are ok. If not, try again until it turns in easy
I repeated this procedure for the right fork leg and then put it all back together and torqued the bolts with my spanky new Craftsman torque wrench
I thought this was a neat, cheap upgrade. For the money it seems to help reduce sag quite a bit. I didn't like the feel of the 1 3/4" spacer so I went to a 1" spacer. I think 1" is going to be too soft, so I may go to a 1 3/8" spacer next. Also, I used the tool kit that came with the bike (yucky). If you have a 22mm 6 point socket or wrench, I would recommend using it on the caps.